This Girl's 16th Birthday Gift from Her Grandpa Will Crush Your Heart
For the very luckiest teenagers, the milestone 16th birthday brings with it the ultimate gift: a car. As cool as it to have four wheels to call your very own, that present has just been downgraded thanks to one very special grandfather in Texas and his exemplary gift-giving skills.
Ren Blank turned 16 this week, and posted pics of the unforgettable gift she got from her grandpa: It turns out he chronicled every single time they hung out when she was a baby and toddler, maintaining notebooks about all the fun times they had together for the first several years of her life. He handed over three notebooks filled to the brim with sweet memories.
today for my birthday, my grandpa gave me 3 books filled w stories of each time he hung out w me from the age of 2 to 5. I am speechless.😭 pic.twitter.com/fyeOUV1K2J
- ren (@renblankk) March 23, 2017
Do you feel the tears coming? We do.
"I had no idea that he had these, and neither did my parents or anyone in my family," Blank tells Seventeen.com. "It was a complete shock. I didn't cry at first, but it was so overwhelming."
Blank grew up very close with her grandpa, who helped raise her because of her mother's schedule. She was his first grandchild. Earlier on this week, he told her mother that he had a special gift for Blank, but wanted to save it. "He said that it was a memento, and he wanted to give it to me after he passed away," she says. "My mother said, 'No, give it to her now so it has more meaning!'" Thankfully, he did.
Blank still hasn't read through all of the notebooks and her grandfather's anecdotes, but even a quick peek could make you weepy. "'She and I think alike. We never argue. She looks out for me,'" Blank reads aloud. "I never thought I could love anyone like I love Lauren,'" referring to Ren's full name.
Blank's tweet has been retweeted 140,000 times so far, with a half a million likes, but good luck explaining that to her grandpa. "He does not understand Twitter, but I did tell him. I explained how it works, and he listened, and said, 'I still don't get it!'" Blank laughs. "Just saying the numbers, hundreds of thousands, he understood that."
Classmates have commented on her newfound fame in the last 24 hours, but she sees the virality as just another layer of the gift. "It wasn't me being famous, it was about my grandpa's love for me becoming famous," she says. "It's touching so many people's hearts. When they look at my tweet, they think, I need to spend more time with my grandparents."
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